Episode 1: Laughter Behind the Walls // Transcript

This is John Masko. I'm a Physician, a psychiatrist. But conversations that follow have little to do with formal psychiatry, except in so far as psychiatry — depending on one's perspective — counts the broad range of human thought and emotion within its purview. No, the topics at hand, for the most part, are in another arena. 

But let me backup for a moment and describe for you the circumstances surrounding these interviews. There's a monastery of Catholic nuns, they're called Cistercians or Trappistines in Wrentham, Massachusetts, not far from my home. They have a chapel on the property for their worship and there's provision for the public to attend services. One day I did so and was assaulted, or so I felt, by the behavior of these sisters. I heard laughter coming from the hidden areas beyond the chapel after the service and had an immediate complex reaction, the leading edge of which was bemused irritation.

I should mention that by virtue of my work, I have super-sensitive antennae. For me, there are a hundred styles of laughter as there are types of smiles, ways to raise eyebrows, and so on. And this was a joyous laugh, a pure laugh, the kind I rarely hear and almost never give myself. It's like hearing a pure clear note from a trumpet when you're used to playing and listening to kazoos. 

I thought to myself, "What right has she to have such a pure soul, a heart unencumbered by the usual baffles that we place between our inner self and its expression?" She has run away from life. She's probably been cooped up in this prison for decades. She's led a loveless life, surrounded by a bunch of frightened, confused unloved ladies. So, where did — where could that sweet note, that pure Clarion laugh come from?

Have you ever experienced that kind of disconnect, a realization that something is terribly out of whack, that two pieces can't possibly fit together in the same puzzle? Either my senses, well honed over decades, were misreading that laugh — could it be a pseudo-joyous laugh — or I was wrong about the nature of monastic life? What I did was this, I contacted the reverend mother of the community and asked to talk with 12 sisters for a series of individual meetings.

We met mostly in tiny cell-like visitors rooms for one to two hours each during the autumn of 1997, in early 98. The meeting rooms and the people in them were tightly packed so neighboring conversations and movements were often overheard, as you'll detect on the audio tape. What follows are excerpts from 5 of the 12 interviews. I typically began the meetings by asking how that sister came to be there: what possessed her to choose this unusual way of life? Listen, as they describe their lives and minds.